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Wednesday September 17, 10:15 a.m.
I sat in the waiting room at the Saint Albany Medical Clinic. The walls were painted an institutional green. On one wall hung a print of a painting of generic-looking flowers. I wondered what impulse would possess a person who could actually paint to do a picture of something so uninteresting. A side table was host to Time magazines dating back ten years. The place was packed. Kids were crying, adults sneezing, some with bags under their eyes, everyone looking sad and depressed, worried, used up, unhappy. Is that how these people see me? I wondered. I surreptitiously caught my reflection in the tinted window. Ouch.
I was here because Allison had insisted. After an otherwise dismal breakfast, I had decided to see a doctor and get some help. She was right, she was always right. So, there I sat, waiting to see a doctor so he’d refer me to a psychologist to dissect my brain and discover my fatal flaw.
I adjusted my legs under my laptop computer. I’d told myself I’d write the next instalment of my column while waiting. My promise to Allison to end the columns nagged away at me, ignored but not forgotten. I’d left a message on Bob’s voice mail that I had an appointment and would be in later that morning. I didn’t have a regular doctor yet—Allison had us on a few waiting lists in town, but Steel City was no different than Toronto in that sense: doctors were hard to come by. I knew we were lucky to have the walk-in clinics.
“... So how long have you been lying?” said Dr. Klus, a female doctor in her late thirties. She had a round face with piercing blue eyes, and her feminine hands were in contrast to her strong shoulders.
We’d finished all the medical history preliminaries. I had awkwardly tried to explain my reason for seeking counselling.
I took a deep breath and inhaled. Well, this wasn’t uncomfortable, was it? “As far back as I can remember. But not always, just once in a while. It’s not compulsive.”
“And why do you lie, do you think?”
“I dunno. Mostly I lie to myself.”
She nodded understandingly. “We all do that, Mr. Love.”
“Yeah, but it makes me do crazy things, like pick up and move, or romanticize the past too much. Then I end up making decisions that are irrational, really. I mean, I know I’m lying to myself, but I can’t help it.” I heard my own voice say it.
“So you feel that your lying to yourself is causing you to lose control of your life?”
“Yeah, something like that.” After my initial squeamishness about unloading my private emotions for an audience, I could feel myself really getting into this. “I get scared and my gut’s telling me not to do the things I do, but I do them anyway. I’m a liar, and I hate liars, but I lie to myself over and over again and I hate myself for it. Round and round, over and over.” I felt the misery dripping from every word.
“I can book you to see someone, but I have to warn you, there’s a huge waiting list.” She looked regretful.
This was getting nowhere. I had to do something, something desperate. I was going to lose my wife. How else could I get immediate help? I blurted: “I think about killing myself all the time. The other day, I was so depressed I tried to hang myself with a, with a,” I cast about desperately for an idea, “clothes hanger. I need help or I’m going to cut my freakin’ heart out. I can’t take it anymore.” Liar, liar, liar!
She quickly became quite intense. “Okay, Mr. Love,” she said, turning to the chart on her computer, “I’ll do everything I can to fast track you. I can also provide you with a list of private practitioners. You could see them within a few days, but they’re not cheap.”
“Okay, um,” I said, edging off the examination table. Suddenly I was feeling panicky. How many more lies was I going to tell? I was frightening myself. “Actually, that was all a big lie. I’m okay, really. I’ll pay for services if I feel any more desperate.
Clearly, she didn’t believe me now. The irony was not lost on me. “Mr. Love, let’s talk through some of this now. I can’t let you leave feeling this way. I am trained to counsel patients who are feeling depressed or anxious.”
“I just really have to go now,” I said hastily, stepping toward the door.
She hurried in front of me, pulled a brochure from the wall rack, and gave it to me. “Mr. Love, if you feel desperate at any time, don’t hesitate to call any of these numbers. There are lots of help lines when you’re going through a bad patch. You don’t need to hurt yourself.”
I felt so guilty about worrying this nice woman. “Is there a Liars Anonymous listed here?”
She smiled regretfully. “No, sorry. Don’t think that one exists yet.”
“It bloody well should.”
She nodded. “You sure you won’t stay and talk to me?”
“Sorry. No. But thanks for everything.”
And I was out, hustling past the sickos in the waiting room and then out the front door, chewing on the fact that I’d tried to take the first step towards dealing with my insidious lying—by lying.
Great. I was definitely on the road to recovery.
